The Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute receives national recognition by the White House

Martha Bushong — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 18:03:16 +0000

The Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute receives national recognition by the White House Martha Bushong Fri, 08/27/2021 - 14:03

In This Story

Paulo Costa

The Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CyManII) was recognized by President Joe Biden and the White House Administration during his address given to the Cybersecurity Summit on August 25, 2021. U.S. public and private sector entities have been attacked in various high-profile cybersecurity incidents by increasingly sophisticated and malicious cyber attackers. President Biden addressed the cybersecurity threats and incidents that are currently affecting the nation and discussed how the government, education, and private sectors can work together to improve the nation’s cybersecurity.

Researchers from Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing are deeply involved with CyManII, and dedicated space at George Mason University’s Arlington Campus serves as the institute's east coast headquarters. The headquarters will house offices, meeting space, and training facilities for the National Capital Region.

“The Arlington facility will include lab space and equipment to demonstrate, test, and validate CyManII’s emerging cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing technologies and products,” says Associate Professor and Vice President for Securing Automation and Supply Chain Paulo Costa. “Our proximity to the Department of Energy and Washington, D.C. will be useful to visitors when we return to in-person meetings and events.”

The 13,000-square-foot facility supports robotic platforms that evaluate security vulnerabilities, the impact of 5G on autonomous vehicles, the power grid, smart buildings and cities, and smart manufacturing. The space will also host a robotic smart manufacturing testbed and provide meeting and temporary office space for visiting researchers and staff.

Mason is participating in road mapping efforts and strategic decisions about investments, technical focus, and projects. Mason faculty will also gain complimentary access to CyManII events, tech showcases and meetings, and participate in the annual RFP (Request for Proposals) competition. Researchers from the College of Engineering and Computing, who are setting up the lab, are playing key roles in CyManII’s first-year projects, finding ways to protect manufacturing automation and supply chains from cyber threats, and designing better security for advanced manufacturing plants.

Funded by the Department of Energy, CyManII addresses the fundamental, hard challenges of cybersecurity within the manufacturing and cybersecurity sectors of our nation’s infrastructure. As mentioned by the White House, the U.S. manufacturing and energy critical infrastructure ecosystems are at high risk to cyber-attacks and thus, makes the U.S. manufacturing sector the number one target for nation-state cyber-attacks.

“CyManII recognizes that to transform the manufacturing industry, we must provide workforce development at scale to reach manufacturers where they exist today to upskill and reskill their workforce,” said CyManII Chief Executive Officer Howard Grimes. “To protect U.S. companies from cyber-attacks, a massive workforce development effort must be launched.”

Investing its technical expertise and efforts into developing a state-of-the-art secure manufacturing architecture called Energy Efficient (ε) Pervasive, Unobtrusive, Resilient, and Economical (ε-PURE), CyManII has begun the work necessary to research, implement and educate manufactures on the evolving threat vectors. This work aims to protect U.S companies from current and future cyber-attacks as well as increase overall equipment energy efficiency to provide manufacturers more productivity and more profit.

“CyManII will introduce new cyber-informed, secure-by-design architectures and we will align the implementation of these architectures, on both legacy and new systems, with a highly trained workforce capable of defending U.S. companies and manufacturers over the next decades,” says Grimes.

Topics

Cyber Security

College of Engineering and Computing

Arlington campus

Mason to unveil a new Cyber Living Innovation Lab as part of the CCI

Colleen Rich — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 20:23:55 +0000

Mason to unveil a new Cyber Living Innovation Lab as part of the CCI Colleen Rich Thu, 12/12/2019 - 15:23

A Cyber Living Innovation Lab with robotic platforms to evaluate 5G performance and a fleet of driverless cars will provide experiential learning opportunities to students from universities across the region as the anchor of George Mason University’s cybersecurity research expansion, thanks to $2.5 million in funding as part of a statewide initiative.

Mason will use $500,000 in bond funds awarded by the Commonwealth of Virginia to establish the Cyber Living Innovation Lab, which will serve as an integral part of the Mason-led Northern Virginia Node of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) starting in fall 2020. The facility, which will be housed in Vernon Smith Hall on Mason’s Arlington Campus, adjacent to the future Institute for Digital InnovAtion, will feature 3,000 square feet dedicated to cybersecurity research, training and experiential learning. It will align with the CCI’s strategic aim of growing workforce-ready cybersecurity and cyberphysical system security talent need to meet today’s demands and tomorrow’s economy.

“The Cyber Living Innovation Lab is a fabulous example of shared innovation platform,” said Deborah Crawford, Mason’s vice president for research, innovation and economic impact. “The lab will support cutting-edge research to secure the vast internet of everything, as well as experiential learning opportunities for students across all of the Northern Virginia Node’s partner institutions.”

The lab is the crown jewel of the efforts of a consortium of more than 60 Northern Virginia-based universities, colleges, and private, nonprofit and government organizations all sharing a commitment to building innovation capacity by focusing academic research and development, supporting an entrepreneurial ecosystem and aligning education and training with industry needs.

CCI aims to leverage this collaboration of selected industry partners to build ecosystems, prototypes, and testbeds and be recognized as a global leader in cyber physical systems security.

“Our impact on research and development, talent cultivation and economic impact is magnified by our partnerships and our ability to leverage and combine efforts to achieve our mutual goals,” said Liza Wilson Durant, the associate dean for strategic initiatives and community engagement at Mason’s Volgenau School of Engineering and the director of the Northern Virginia Node of the CCI.

The commonwealth approved $2.5 million for each of the four regional nodes last year, as well as an additional $500,000 each in capital funding for the necessary equipment research that will help educate students through 11 distinct initiatives in the areas of research, talent development and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The Cyber Living Innovation Lab will include autonomous vehicle sensor platforms to study 5G performance and security vulnerabilities. The platforms will support Lidar, radar, stereo and night vision cameras that will be deployed on the Northern Virginia Node’s fleet of vehicles to simulate autonomous driving. The vehicles will be deployed throughout the Northern Virginia Node and may remain in residence at partner institutions for periods of time to collect data.

The lab will facilitate further study of impact of 5G on the security of industry, smart manufacturing and the vulnerability of the supporting power grid. It will also include office space for Northern Virginia Node faculty, other partner visitors and graduate student researchers, while providing classroom instruction to cohorts of community college students and undergraduates so they can apply what they’ve learned to real-world cyber challenges.

“The Cyber Living Innovation Lab will enable research, as well as hands-on experiential learning and will be open to all Northern Virginia Node partners,” Wilson Durant said.

The CCI includes four regional nodes from across the state, each led by an institution of higher learning. The Northern Virginia-based CCI hub coordinates activities across the nodes, relying on the active collaboration of institutions of higher education across the state to contribute their experience, ideas and expertise.

Mason produces more graduates in the computing fields than any other university in the state, and is a key player in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.

Ten percent of the top Cybersecurity 500 global firms are concentrated in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County alone accounts for more than 350 cyber firms, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies.